(From the perspective of Sherlock)

Symphony No. 5 in F Major

I want to let the sunshine in, John.
I beg of you, move the clouds away.
Help me part the leaflike shutters of 221B,
And throw up the heavy sash
Until I can close my eyes
And breathe in the air of London
At the close of an eternity of heavy rain,
When the molecular concentration
Of sulfur and carbon monoxide
Is low, and the wind off the Thames
Pushes the curtains apart at about 25 km/hr.
Then I can open my lungs
And let my pores breathe in the sunshine.

I know better than to pray, John,
For God is but a sad delusion;
I trust a good man more than I trust an icon.
You're a good man, John;
You do not beget life, but I see
That life is around you and in you,
And that sunshine is around you and in you.
I believe you can fill my request.
Indeed, you can confirm my own prescription,
Or maybe tell me how I need a higher dose than I thought.
But I don't believe my request would conflict
With the judgment of your professional opinion.
There needs to be some sunshine let in.
Undoubtedly, I need some sunshine to be let in.

Nothing further needs to be said.
Few men would I entrust with such
A task as this, John, for it is indeed
Akin to cleaning out the Aegean stables
To merely get the shutters to stay open
For more than the slightest second.
Physics doesn't help me here
As much as I wish it did;
If I could have designed some marvelous thing
To make this work on my own,
I'd have long done it, John.
I'd have full control over how much sunshine got let in.

As it is at the moment, though,
I am frustrated, tired, and bored.
You've got a more dogged temperament
Than I have, at times, and find glory
In the completion of a strenuous task
That requires simply brute strength,
Of a task not dependent upon the agility of the mind.
This is one of those kinds of things, John,
One of these difficult, boring things that must be done.
But it's not pragmatic and it defies reason.
I am loathe to admit how much I need it,
For my mind is a mighty machine, John,
But it's the context in which this machine exists,
The jewel-case that holds it proudly,
That is suffering so much without the sun.

John, you are invaluable in so many ways
To such a crucial life-saving task as this is.
Maybe I do believe in God, John,
For I'm a genius of a kind,
And we can deduce that such goodness as genius
Comes only from a source that is
Fond of giving out extras sometimes.
But we're at war, John, and the sky is black
With the confusion and chaos of battle.
I fight, and have always fought
Valiantly on the side of the angels,
But I am keenly aware I'm not one of them.
For angels not only drink of the sunshine, John,
They radiate it from their thousand eyes.

I've never let the sunshine in, John
All I have drunk up 'til now is the dark.
That sweet seductive ambrosia of coldness
And scorn and indifference and dispassion
Worn like a winter coat with the collar turned up
Can only carry a man so far
When he is in opposition to the world.
A world I can't prevent from dying
But that I can at least ease into rest
If I have a reserve store of sunshine
As a bolster and a comfort.
And I see you've got some sunshine, John.
Loads and loads of sunshine.

I've been starved of sunshine my whole life,
Living instead in the dark with the smells
Of death, gunsmoke, and laboratories.
I thought I was supreme, and that
Lesser men couldn't survive where I have survived
Deep in the trenches of dark French beaches
But I didn't know that sunshine could shine there
Or that a man like you could abide alongside me.
So when we look at one another
Lusting after life, experiencing every experience,
It's a new wing of the mind palace illuminated.
For you've lived a life in the sunshine, John.
Help me let the sunshine in, too.

We don't know what lies ahead of us,
A rush of greatness, a rush of pain;
We dare not to look at each other in the darkness
Lest each look be our last,
But lo! a moment when the clouds have parted
And the morning star is shining above,
Your steadfastness is beside my flight of fancy,
Stable, warm, unchanging, like sunshine.
This makes the fight a pleasure, John,
So the silence of unsung, lonely tunes within us
Does not kill us from the inside out
But is instead made relevant, acknowledged, and accepted
And diffused as we gulp in the sun.

Dare I ask...dare I ask for a glimpse
Of what a life of sunshine might contain?
I've painted on our wall a smiling, pleasant face
Of yellow, painted with liquid sunshine.
And I shot at it, for such things as smiles are made
For more mortal men than I,
With hearts that are not steeped in the chemicals
Of laboratories or evaluated in beakers.
But since I cannot emit sunshine, it seems apt
To do this strange kind of art, for you.
Please understand, it is a kind of embrace.
Or...a righteous kiss?
Actualized, such a thing would dissect me
Like a specimen. But perhaps I crave vivisection,
As long as the blade is made of the most sterile sunshine
And commanded by a man who is sunshine.
Seal the wounds, sew them up with stitches;
I can bear the pain of the surgery if it is
The only way to get the sunshine in.

For the human soul and psyche are twisted, John,
Mine being no exception,
As linear and logical as I try to be.
Where there is confusion and chaos
There are also great gaping holes of dark.
I am not being sentimental;
These are the places that anger broods
Like mold, as well as the inspiration that comes
And prods us to do what we would never dream to do.
Also the bondage of self justification is rooted there,
Fiercely tethered to the new lies we tell ourselves
In moments of temptation and weakness.
I have resisted these bonds for so long, John
But my strength is wearing thin.
The fibres of my being are no thicker than
Strings on a spider-web sitar.
It is imperative, for my sake and the world's,
That you help me let the sunshine in.

Could I be a criminal?
Do I dare to consider the taste of a bruised peach
Or listen to the sirens singing, each to each?
I grow old, John, I grow old
And I think I have no purpose at times
Except to stand like Atlas
Solving lesser men's unfortunate crimes.
It is a thought that dances increasingly closer,
A hand subtly beckoning from a grave,
And it promises an interesting future on the horizon
Where everything...
...Everything...
Is dark and mysterious and glorious.
But I turn my head, I back away.
It is the destiny of someone else.
I must bear a torch of sunshine
To reveal that these thoughts are dusty mirages,
But I also must let the sunshine in, John,
To keep them from growing in the first place,
For they cannot survive in the sun.

I think if I try to go without the sunshine
For much longer, John,
I will succumb to the great chasmic abyss
That is evil...or worse!
Can you imagine my body containing a soul
So fractured by the cracks of darkness
That it reflects two different men?
One who works for the yin,
One who reacts to the yin on behalf of the yang?
...What am I saying, John! I am not clinically schizophrenic
(I pray)
But I fear that if I deny the possibility then indeed
That is when the danger becomes real.
I therefore consider it constantly with the hopes that
In my predicting it, adequate preparations are made.
So, how real is the man named Sigerson?
And what of every cleaning-woman,
Peddler, bureaucrat, gypsy, and businessman I have played?
There is only one way to prevent such a splintering
Of the self, John...and that is clear.
Just help me let the sunshine in,
Let the sunshine in, to let me see what is true.

I want to arise and go now,
But fear that if I stand from this position
Too quickly, or if someone slams a door,
My iron ego shall weaken, and
A fragment of my soul will become separate from my body.
The sunshine must be gently let in, John,
And dissolve the dark in those untouched spaces
That my consciousness will not even recognize.
I breathe with heavy breaths and try
To contain all of myself at once
While also understanding everything in the world.
If I become a permeable membrane, John,
And let every component of my soul
Touch and oil the gears that make up the souls
Of everyone and everything in this dying nation
Then I will no longer exist, John,
Nor will you, nor will England.
I fear what the effects of the sunshine will be,
It is true, but the thing about sunshine is
It requires neither active transport nor diffusion
To enter the body of the cell.
The sunshine will not inhibit the integrity of
My existence, I hope, John,
For it is has magical powers of absorption
That will allow me to accept it in.
The sunshine will come in.

Be my Apollo.
Be also silent, though.
Lay down your harp;
Let us rest in silence,
Standing, short of breath, looking at one another
While in the rising fog of a dying England.
The silence is terrifying, though, John,
Loathe as I am to acknowledge that I am scared.
I am not deceived by my senses;
Indeed, it is my senses that will save me
As long as you balance out the coins in your pockets
And talk for a while on the prolificity of oysters.
Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?
Ha! I made you wonder for a moment, John,
I daresay not a very kind trick.
But for a moment I made myself wonder too, John.
Don't you see how vital, how elementary
It is to allow the sunshine into the very
Depths of one's being?
I am asking for your small assistance in this matter, John,
To help me let the sunshine in.

So I beg you to let me lay for awhile
In vacant and pensive mood in the sun
While you keep alert and ensure that
The vulnerability I display is kept private.
I need your help to see the sun, John.
I need you to let the sunshine into
This dark wet pithy crabapple of a man
To soften his soul and allow it a chance
To deduce some semblance of meaning from it.
My flesh is failing for want of the goodness
That comes with the deep beauty of sunshine.
Don't let me fall while I drink
Of the sunshine when I am most open to it.

Help me let the sunshine in, John.
To let the sunshine in...
...To let the sunshine in.

I want to believe it's not toxic to me yet.

*This is heavily inspired by "The Flesh Failures / Let the Sunshine In" from the musical, Hair.